


All dead paper, mute and white

by lbmisscharlie



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blogging, M/M, Presumed Dead, Reichenbach Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 19:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Reichenbach. After Sherlock dies, John keeps writing in his blog. In these private posts he says all the things he wishes he could say to Sherlock.</p><p>John's not in denial. He knows Sherlock is dead. All he can do now is try to live his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All dead paper, mute and white

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/8651.html?thread=39910859#t39910859) prompt at the kinkmeme: _When Sherlock "dies," John starts a project -- he writes letters, or records a video diary, or maybe starts a private blog, that basically consists of all the things he wants to say to Sherlock. Things from, "Flat seems quiet today, what I wouldn't do for a good explosion," to, "Your brother gets creepier every time I see him," to, "I wish I'd kissed you that one time, you know when." He shuts it down after three years, because that's really too long to be pining after your dead flatmate._
> 
>  _Sherlock, who's alive, either has access to these things (Mycroft procures copies? Sherlock hacks John's blog?) and reads them while he's abroad, missing John. Or, he gets back to Baker Street after three years and gets to read them all then, and basically just angstfluffsweetnessIloveyoutoo._
> 
> Title from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet XXVIII “My letters! All dead paper, mute and white! / And yet they seem alive and quivering”

**16 November 2011  
4:15 AM  
Post status: Public**

He’s gone. Dead. I don’t know what I’ll

 **17 November 2011  
3:54 PM  
Post status: Public**

Thanks everyone for your concerned comments. Sorry for disappearing on you. It’s true, although none of us can quite believe it. There’s no body to view, which make it all a little less real, like he’s going to stumble into 221b anytime and tell me off for being an idiot.

Except he won’t. There were some – oh god – pieces that Mycroft had DNA authenticated.

It was Moriarty (who is also dead, dead as anything, I saw the body, thank god) and an explosion. Had to be a big dramatic showdown to take down Sherlock Holmes, right?

 **17 November 2011  
4:10 PM  
Post status: Private**

How can you be gone?

 **19 November 2011  
8:46 PM  
Post status: Public**

Baker Street seems empty without him. I’m staying here. Wouldn’t feel right to leave, even though it doesn’t feel right to stay either. Seems the rent was paid up through next year – git. Goddamn him.

Mycroft also revealed the terms of Sherlock’s will. Except for some items which rightfully belong to Scotland Yard or Bart’s (the many case files and pieces of lab equipment he so frequently “borrowed”), he left everything to me. I gave Mrs. Hudson the skull (I might miss him, though) and Mycroft Sherlock’s violin. It was a gift from Mycroft in the first place, so it seemed appropriate.

I wish I knew why, though. Why everything to me?

 **19 November 2011  
9:01 PM  
Post status: Private**

I gave him your violin because of everything in the flat, it most of all pains me to look at. I can’t see it without picturing it tucked under your chin, your graceful hands coaxing out music that I still hear in my mind.

 **22 November 2011  
5:46 PM  
Post status: Public**

Sherlock’s memorial was today. I thought I’d have to argue with Mycroft, convince him against a funeral – no body to bury – but he actually agreed with me. We both realized Sherlock would have found it absurd, burying an empty casket. Besides, even if there were remains, Sherlock wanted to be cremated.

There were a lot of people there. Everyone we’ve worked with at Scotland Yard or Barts, grateful clients from all over Britain, even a few from his homeless network. Many good words were said – even by Sally – and we had a toast and a moment of silence. All the unmitigated, pathetic sentimentality he would have hated.

 **22 November 2011  
5:50 PM  
Post status: Private**

I miss you.

 **24 November 2011  
2:18 PM  
Post status: Private**

How, exactly, did you forget about the severed finger in a mug at the back of the cupboard? It fell out when I tried to make tea today – fell out onto me, all decomposing and liquidy.

I had already started yelling at you before I remembered.

 **30 November 2011  
8:23 PM  
Post status: Private**

I know no one’s reading this. It doesn’t matter.

(Well, Mycroft might be. If you are, listen, I appreciate the sentiment, but kindly fuck off)

You would find it absolutely absurd, me writing to a dead person. But I think you know it’s not about telling you anything. I know you’re gone; I’m not in denial. But it’s not like I can tell anyone else. I mean, I don’t. god, I don’t even know.

 **3 December 2011  
2:37 AM  
Post status: Private**

I hate you for leaving me behind.

 **3 December 2011  
4:13 AM  
Post status: Private**

I hate myself even more for not going with you that day.

 **10 December 2011  
6:15 PM  
Post status: Private**

You left your phone in the flat. I don’t know why – you never leave your phone behind. I don’t care. I call it every day to hear your voice. I never leave a message; I’d only pick them up myself and that’s beyond pathetic.

 **18 December 2011  
6:19 PM  
Post status: Private**

Christmas cheer is out in full force. It’s hateful. I remember you, last year, railing about how people make themselves miserable trying to be cheerful for the holidays. Like festive wrapping paper and a bit of foliage inside suddenly will make unhappy families like each other.

You still liked my Christmas tree, though. And you still bought me a present.

 **23 December 2011  
4:34 PM  
Post status: Private**

Your Christmas present arrived today – I had forgotten I had ordered it. It’s an 1894 book of botanic illustrations of the plants of England. I had your bookseller friend, Giorgio, keep a lookout after you admired a similar book in the victim’s library on the Abbey Grange case. It’s in quite tatty shape, nothing rare or priceless I’m sure, but the illustrations are precise, scientific, and quite beautiful. I think you would have liked it.

 **25 December 2011  
3:16 AM  
Post status: Public**

Merry Christmas. Right. Merry. I’m trying to be normal – spending the day later at Harry and Clara’s (back together again, good for them). It promises to be full of dry turkey and virgin eggnogs. I love you Harry, but not your cooking, and this is one Christmas where I really wish I could be completed pissed.

 **25 December 2011  
10:46 PM  
Post status: Private**

Getting pissed on my own. Nothing like family to help you continue into the depths of despair.

 **26 December 2011  
3:23 PM  
Post status: Private**

Feeling like shite and remembering the one and only time I’ve ever seen you hungover. Also at Christmas, remember? Scotland Yard Christmas party – and if you were still here, you’d never be allowed back. I don’t know what made you think a drinking contest with Sally would end well.

 **1 January 2012  
1:13 AM  
Post status: Private**

Apparently I’m doomed to remember all holidays through your eyes. I believe New Years is a “spurious measure of fictive time and an excuse for people to delude themselves into thinking it’s possible to change.” Joy.

 **15 January 2012  
4:57 PM  
Post status: Public**

It’s cold as bollocks outside – and inside, as the heater which Sherlock “fixed” last spring has finally given up. The news is saying we’re hitting record lows, but it still doesn’t feel as cold as that first winter, standing ankle-deep in water looking at a faked car-jacking, running after Sherlock with my shoes squelching.

 **23 January 2012  
4:48 AM  
Post status: Private**

I wish I had kissed you. Just once, just to see.

 **28 January 2012  
9:48 PM  
Post status: Private**

There’s a weird smell coming from your room. I’m afraid to venture in there.

 **29 January 2012  
7:26 PM  
Post status: Private**

I caved. Why were there four dead bats pinned to your nightstand? If you’re going to dissect, I wish you’d do it in a proper dissection pan at least. Also, I don’t want to know what the mouldy gel in the beaker is.

 **5 February 2012  
6:58 PM  
Post status: Private**

I found your scarf – the blue one you favoured – shoved between the couch cushions. I remember you ranting about having lost it a few days before, well, before. It’s a bit musty, but it still smells like you and that absurdly expensive shampoo you absolutely must have.

In fact, your stuff is still everywhere – even your shampoo in the shower. I still feel like I’m waiting for you to come home.

 **14 February 2012  
6:38 PM  
Post status: Public  
**  
St. Valentine’s Day. At least this is one holiday I already detested before I met Sherlock. Ironically, he actually rather liked it – something about heightened expectations leading to more violent crime. Horrible.

Last year we went to Angelo’s – never need reservations, even on Valentine’s – and Sherlock told me the life stories of all the couples seated around us. We got a bit too noisy, what with the wine, and almost had a bit of an altercation with a man seated near us. Just because Sherlock pointed out that he was cheating on his wife by going to prostitutes because he was sexually aroused by pretending to be a penguin.

Honestly, I don’t know why he didn’t get beaten up more often.

 **14 February 2012  
9:32 PM  
Post status: Private**

All these couples, all these romantic films on telly, all the adverts and the admonitions to buy diamonds, tell her you love her, make sure the evening is magical. I hate it all. Not because I’m single, but because love isn’t something that’s done in big romantic gestures. Love is helping each other through every day, through all the trying, annoying, infuriating little things.

 **15 February 2012  
1:47 AM  
Post status: Private**

I love you, you know. Feels like I always have, although I didn’t really realize it.

 **26 February 2012  
8:57 PM  
Post status: Public**

Right, time to get my life back in order. I’ve started at St. Thomas’ A&E. Because of my residual nerve damage, I’ll never be a surgeon, but turns out life on the war front equips one to handle emergency care well. Plus, I feel like I’m helping people in the most desperate times of their lives – just as Sherlock did.

 **26 February 2012  
9:35 PM  
Post status: Private**

I thought about Bart’s, of course. But walking those halls, which are familiar in so many different ways at this point, well, it’d be too much. Every day I’d remember long nights high on too little sleep and adrenaline, pulling pranks with Mike and flirting with nurses. Or walking in after years away and meeting this strange, unnerving, fascinating man. I’d see visits to the morgue, waiting for you to tell us all the things our eyes missed, and pacing in the corridor, waiting to hear test results, x-ray reports, waiting to know what was bruised, broken, fixable or permanent this time.

I’d remember a steel gurney, a body bag, and the lifeless face of the man who killed my best friend.

 **18 March 2012  
8:15 PM  
Post status: Private**

It’s a rush, holding people’s lives in your hands. But it still pales in comparison to chasing after you. I think life will always be a little bit dimmer now.

 **13 April 2012  
2:16 AM  
Post status: Public**

We lost someone today – someone Sherlock probably could have saved. I’ve tried to stay away from Scotland Yard since, well, since. I don’t really feel I have a place there without him – they never needed me. Lestrade came in during my shift at A&E, following an ambulance holding a young woman with a stab wound to the chest. Completely blew out her lung and she was barely holding on. Seems she was the only surviving victim of a particularly vicious rapist/murderer.

Greg said he would have gone to Sherlock three bodies ago. Three women, now four, that might not have died.

 **13 April 2012  
3:08 AM  
Post status: Private**

When I saw Lestrade today, my first thought was to wonder if he was going to call you in on his current case. I think it might actually be a little bit worse every time I remember, because everyone keeps telling me it’ll get easier.

When he told me about the case, I felt – guilty? Ashamed? – something, because all this time I’ve been wanting you back for me, for all the little ways you made my life marvellous, and I haven’t spared many thoughts to the people you could still be saving.

 **7 June 2012  
8:39 PM  
Post status: Private**

Mycroft came by today. He’s called and emailed, but I haven’t actually seen him since the first few weeks after. I wanted to make a joke about his diet, just for your sake, but he’s actually looking thinner than I’ve ever seen him. Gaunt, in fact. He was quiet, not really exuding his usual arrogance. It’s obvious he’s still taking your death hard. I’m not surprised – despite your professed enmity I know how much he’s always cared about you and your well-being. What is it about you that makes all of us feel responsible for your death, especially when it really was your own pig-headedness that got you killed?

The order of business of the day was some incomprehensible legal paperwork having to do with your estate. I simply signed where Mycroft told me to sign.

 **14 June 2012  
5:46 PM  
Post status: Private**

Just got my bank statement. So, apparently now I’m, well, comfortable is the modest term, rich is probably more accurate. I called Mycroft, who explained to me that the endless sheaves of paper I signed last week were in fact documents to finalize the transfer of a secondary trust your brother created and funded in your name. I was not surprised to learn that the contents of your first trust fund (who has more than one trust fund?!) were spent on lab equipment and cocaine by the time you were twenty five.

He really does worry about you constantly.

 **15 September 2012  
5:13 AM  
Post status: Private**

Writing this in the canteen at the hospital, not on duty for once. I’m actually here not to sew up guts and stave off death but because of a tiny, fragile new life. Clara gave birth this morning to a tiny baby girl. She and Harry are over the moon and just so happy with each other. Somehow, the baby – Sophie – has a shock of thick, dark hair, despite Clara’s blondeness. When I held her, she stared at me with these eyes that seemed to know me already. That’s a feeling I hadn’t had in a while.

 **14 October 2012  
4:16 PM  
Post status: Public**

For all my whinging about families, I’ve recently re-discovered that it’s sometimes nice to be part of one. My sister and her wife had a baby last month and I helped out with babysitting duty for the first time yesterday. I always thought babies had no personality for the first few months, but Sophie is a strange charming little thing. She wraps her tiny hands around your fingers and your heart just melts. I remember feeling very protective of Harry when she was first born (after I got over my annoyance that she couldn’t actually do anything yet) and now that I’ve actually seen the dangers of this world I want to make sure nobody ever harms this tiny, precious little creature.

 **16 November 2012  
2:16 AM  
Post status: Public**

One year. He’s been dead and gone for one year.

 **17 November 2012  
5:14 PM  
Post status: Public**

Had some drinks with Lestrade last night. Getting obliterated seemed the thing to do. We talked about him, mostly, old cases and such. I didn’t know, well, I’ve been so wrapped up in my own grief that I didn’t think to ask how he’s been holding up this whole time.

They’re still solving crimes. Maybe not as quickly, but they’re capable – more capable than Sherlock would concede. The few times I’ve seen anyone from the Yard since, they’ve treated me with kid gloves. Reckon it’s time I got over myself and move on.

 **17 November 2012  
5:21 PM  
Post status: Private**

Figured Lestrade wouldn’t be too pleased with me putting this up for all the public to see, but he’s still taking it hard. I think he feels responsible, and god do I know how that eats away at you. I reminded him how headstrong you were, how determined to do everything independently, not to rely on anyone.

I wish you had relied on me.

 **16 December 2012  
6:46 PM  
Post status: Public**

Christmas time again. God, kill me now. (I’m kidding, Harry, I’m fine. Yes, I’ll see you on Christmas. Say hi to baby Sophie for me.)

 **4 January 2013  
6:46 PM  
Post status: Private**

I had to tell a man his partner ODed today. I’ve seen a lot of people mourning, in many situations, but what struck me the most here was his anger. He was just so mad – at his partner, at god, at the world. It made me think. While I was angry at you, at Moriarty, at your pigheadedness, the most prevalent emotion I’ve had this entire time is an overwhelming sense of loss. An emptiness where there used to be something.

It might be why I’m still writing this, to you. Like if I can tell you all the ways I’m missing you, maybe I won’t miss you as much. It doesn’t work and I soldier on. Getting mad at you never solved anything anyway.

 **17 February 2013  
9:47 PM  
Post status: Private**

I finally cleared out your room. I donated your suits – some lucky beanpole is going to have a good day in the charity shop soon. Stray scientific equipment went to a local primary school, not to be used until after a rigorous round in the sanitizer. Your books I just organized. Not quite ready to let them go. Mementos from our cases, those were hard. I’ve boxed them up with your case notes – someday I’ll feel up to recording them. They do need to be recorded – people need to know what you did, how you helped.

I kept your purple shirt and that blue scarf.

 **25 March 2013  
7:35 PM  
Post status: Public**

I keep trying to type up some of our old cases but find myself lapsing into memories of how on this case, Sherlock dove into the Thames after a criminal and I after him and we had to drag each other out, sodden and gasping. An undercurrent grabbed the criminal anyway and we got a mouthful from Lestrade about proper procedure and the Yard’s lack of insurance for independent consultants. I remember Sherlock trying to argue that the man dying meant less paperwork all around, which the D.I. would have none of.

Or I’ll pull out a file and remember the four-hour stakeout in a dim sum restaurant. Sherlock was, as usual, refusing to eat, so I had to keep ordering things so we wouldn’t get kicked out before the man we were watching came out of the house across the street. I was off dumplings for months afterwards.

If Sherlock were here he’d say I’m writing stories filled with fanciful observations and unnecessary details rather than precise reports of his scientific process. So, no change there, really.

 **30 April 2013  
6:48 PM  
Post status: Private**

Met an interesting woman today. School teacher, smart as a tack, sarcastic and witty and beautiful. She came in with one of her students who had had a particularly nasty allergic reaction. The girl was saved by Mary thinking quickly and finding an epi-pen – apparently no one even knew the girl was allergic to almonds until now. After the girl’s parents arrived, Mary asked me out.

I guess I’m going on a date.

 **5 May 2013  
11:38 PM  
Post status: Private**

I think I talked about you too much. But Mary seemed to understand – well, at least the part about the dead best friend/flatmate, I didn’t tell her that I realized I was in love with you after your death and have been pining like an Austen heroine since. God, I’m pathetic.

 **13 May 2013  
2:47 AM  
Post status: Private**

We ordered in Chinese tonight and I tried to predict the fortune cookies. Didn’t do nearly as well as you, and told Mary so.

 **28 May 2013  
5:48 PM  
Post status: Private**

I was telling Mary about Sophie tonight and she told me that she wants kids, a family. She’s 36 (your age, age you’d be) so it’s important to her to have that soon. I always thought I wanted a family, eventually. My childhood was rocky sometimes, sure, but there always seemed such promise in starting a new generation. I know what you’d say – we’re all doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents, having children is merely a selfish attempt at immortality. I halfway agree with you, but that doesn’t mean a wife, a steady job, a house, and a few rambunctious kids weren’t something I wanted.

I don’t know exactly when I realized that wasn’t something I wished for anymore – when you died, when I met you, when I came back from the war, or maybe even the first time I saw a child dying in the streets in Afghanistan. And even though the life I wish I had – with you, in whatever capacity that might be – I can’t have, that other life isn’t an option for me either.

I didn’t really know what to tell her.

 **14 June 2013  
6:47 PM  
Post status: Private**

I think if I had met Mary at a different time I would have fallen in love with her. As it is, though, I’m so numb that I just...I can’t. I enjoy myself when we’re together but I’m always comparing it. Quiet movie nights pale in comparison to a nice chase through London and I’m ashamed to say that Mary, delightful as she is, is a no more than a shadow of you, even the sad, paltry version of you that’s all I have left in my imagination.

Needless to say, we’re over. Hardly even got started, really.

 **7 July 2013  
3:57 PM  
Post status: Public**

Spending the weekend with my niece while her mums have a weekend away. Luckily I already know Sophie’s a happy, content baby, not squally like Harry at that age.

 **8 July 2013  
9:15 PM  
Post status: Private**

Rocked Sophie to sleep while telling her about the case of the lost fisherman – you remember, the one with the baby lamb? (Yes, I know ‘baby lamb’ is redundant). It was one of our happier cases – no murders, everyone found and safe at the end, and cute fuzzy animals. I thought I’d save the more gristly ones for when she’s older.

I can see your response now – ‘John, my cases are examples of the strenuous application of serious scientific research, not children’s fairy tales.’ Well, I don’t know any fairy tales.

 **27 October 2013  
6:35 PM  
Post status: Private**

Pouring rain and a serious autumn chill in the air. It’s days like this my leg hurts the worst. Yes, I know if any injury would hurt in inclement weather it should at least be the one with actual bone damage and scar tissue, not the psychosomatic limp. I’ve had to use my cane more and more this past year, though. Knowing it goes away when given the proper stimulation doesn’t help at all when I’m sat at home pitying myself.

 **16 November 2013  
3:42 AM  
Post status: Public**

Two years. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep on the 16th, not for as long as I’m alive.

 **26 December 2013  
5:43 PM  
Post status: Public**

Children definitely go a long way toward making family holidays more tolerable. Went round to Harry and Clara’s for Christmas dinner and Sophie kept us all entertained with her interest in all the sparkles and baubles and later in the paper used to wrap her presents. As we all watched her, entranced with a ribbon bow, I was briefly reminded of Sherlock studying intently the tie on a suspect’s shoelaces or a victim’s half-windsor knot. He probably wouldn’t appreciate the comparison.

 **14 January 2014  
6:32 PM  
Post status: Private**

The short days this time of year reminds me of trying to keep you entertained between cases. I’m going a bit stir-crazy, Mrs. Hudson keeps inviting me down for tea, and shooting holes in the walls is becoming more and more appealing.

 **3 March 2014  
9:34 PM  
Post status: Private**

I got mugged today, on my way home. Well, it was more of an attempted mugging, as one good whack with my cane over his wrist made the thug both drop the knife and drop in pain. As I held him in place waiting for the police, I thought about how inept the criminals of London are getting. The fact that I, at that moment, almost yearned for a good kidnapping shows that I spent far too much time in your company. Either that, or you’ve been gone so long that I’m no longer a target – who cares about an old, lame ex-army doctor?

 **13 April 2014  
6:45 PM  
Post status: Private**

Sophie’s just gotten old enough to start understanding me when I talk about you – anytime your name comes up in conversation, she shouts it. Well, her approximation of it, which sort of sounds like Shurk. I’ve reassured Clara that I only ever tell her stories with a minimum of blood. Although there’s so few of those I’ve started repeating myself.

 **16 June 2014  
3:23 AM  
Post status: Private**

I’m finding this blog increasingly difficult – I’ve been avoiding it, in fact, even though I’m the only one reading. It may seem as though the fewer posts lately means I’ve stopped thinking about you so much, but it’s not that at all. I’ve realized how I still think of you in everything I do – I wonder what you would think of me, what I meant to you, I imagine your sarcastic remarks and laugh to myself. You’re never not on my mind and while writing it down before helped now it just reminds me that that is all I have left.

I’m supposed to be able to get over you, even though I know now that I love you – probably an unhealthy amount – I should be able to move on, honour your memory but make a new life for myself.

Working on the new life part – it’s quiet and hatefully dull sometimes, but it’s a life. I’m trying to rebuild.

 **28 July 2014  
2:35 AM  
Post status: Private**

It occurs to me that I might have once been quite happy with this sort of life – a job where I help people, a family I’m suddenly close to again, a few close friends. It might have been the sort of life I could have picked up after I got home, maybe. If I hadn’t met you. And now I have it and it’s all lacking.

 **16 November 2014  
1:57 AM  
Post status: Public**

Three years. He’s been dead much longer than I knew him, even. I thought, when we met, that he’d be the death of me.

 **18 November 2014  
4:15 AM  
Post status: Private**

You’ll probably hack into my blog and read this in the morning, but it needs to be said. FUCK YOU. Fuck you and I love you and if you ever, ever leave me again I may kill you.

Now I’m turning off my computer, I’m wrapping my arms around you, and I’m making you sleep until noon because three years dead apparently means you never sleep. Then I’m cooking you the world’s largest fry-up and you are eating every single bite.

 **20 November 2014  
5:18 AM  
Post status: Public**

Well. Many of you will have already heard, but the great Sherlock Holmes has returned from the dead. The bastard faked his death three years ago to run all over the world and hunt down Moriarty’s henchmen. Three days ago he walked into 221b, even thinner than I thought would ever be possible, with a frankly horrible beard, but alive.

I thought I might be hallucinating at first. But then he said my name and his voice was better than anything I’ve been able to imagine for three years. I punched him. Not that hard. And then I kissed him. Harry, don’t say a bloody word.

 **30 November 2014  
8:36 PM  
Post status: Public**

The game’s on! Damn, this feels good.

 **5 December 2014  
9:45 PM  
Post status: Private**

It turns out all that time, writing into the void, I was actually writing to the man himself. Even on the run, chasing criminals, he took time to hack into my blog, just to see how I was doing. If I had known…well, in some ways I’m glad I didn’t. Obviously, if I had known he was alive, I would have been with him (yes, Sherlock, despite your protests. I would have insisted and you would have relented. Which I suppose is why you didn’t tell me in the first place). But since I didn’t, I wrote things I never would have told him.

And I suppose if I hadn’t, he might not be here next to me.

 **8 December 2014  
5:27 PM  
Post status: Public**

Sherlock met Sophie today. I’ve never seen a more determined staring contest, and that includes Mycroft’s first visit after Sherlock came back. Sophie seems to have judged him acceptable – in fact, I’d go so far as to say she’s completely smitten. She wobbles after him asking ‘why’ about absolutely everything and patiently listens to his convoluted scientific responses. I think the regard is mutual.

 **11 December 2014  
6:20 PM  
Post status: Public**

It’s been strange having him back. The ratio of stuff in our flat is skewed more towards mine now, for one thing. Maybe it was lucky we had a case only days after he returned (although, technically, it was one of Moriarty’s last uncaptured henchmen, so it was more a continuation than a new case) because it meant we also were able to fall back into working together, being together, without having to deal with the complicated re-negotiations that must occur when your flatmate returns from the dead. I mean, beyond the complicated re-negotiations that must occur when said dead flatmate becomes your...boyfriend? partner? Lover? (really, Harry, not a word)

I’m keeping my job at St. Thomas’ – we’ll just have to figure out a way to balance shifts with cases. We’ll be seeing a lot of Harry, Clara, and Sophie, which means limiting the toxic chemicals in the kitchen. At least now we’ve got the spare bedroom to store whatever experiments don’t need refrigeration. (Harry, Sally, no gagging comments). If there’s one thing I’ve learned from these three years it’s that a little bit of balance might not go amiss.

 **11 December 2014  
6:32 PM  
Post status: Private**

I love you, but you can’t be everything to me all the time. In fact, I think it would go disastrously if you tried. So we’re going to try this – a tiny bit of normal, a tiny bit of death-defiance and probably a whole host of absurdity and madness. But I need to be my own person, outside of who I am with you.

 **18 December 2014  
3:45 PM  
Post status: Public**

Lestrade’s just informed me that we’re invited to the Scotland Yard Christmas party. In fact, his exact words were, “Sally says to tell your boyfriend that she’s going to drink him under the table until he wishes he’d stayed dead.”

I think we’ll be all right.


End file.
